Wilson, William Scott 1944–

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Wilson, William Scott 1944–

PERSONAL: Born 1944; children: Matthew, Michelle. Education: Dartmouth College, B.A. (political science); Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies, B.A. (Japanese language and literature); University of Washington, M.A. (Japanese language and literature), 1979.

ADDRESSES: Home—Miami, FL. Agent—Kodansha International, Otowa YK Building, 1-17-14 Otowa, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8652, Japan.

CAREER: Author and translator.

WRITINGS:

(Translator and author of introduction) Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, edited by Gregory N. Lee, Ohara Publications (Burbank, CA), 1982.

(Translator) Hung Ying-ming, The Roots of Wisdom: Saikontan, Kodansha International (New York, NY), 1985.

(Translator) Takuan Sōhō, The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master, Kodansha International (New York, NY), 1986.

The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi, Kodansha International (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: While an undergraduate student at Dartmouth College, William Scott Wilson was invited by a friend to take a kayak trip for three months along the coast of Japan. The trip, which was later chronicled in National Geographic, was his first experience with the Asian country and it ultimately altered the course of his studies. After studying Japanese language and literature in college, Wilson then traveled to Nagoya, Japan, where he began researching Edo period philosophy at the Aichi Prefectural University. He later earned a master's degree in Japanese language and literature from the University of Washington. These studies provided Wilson with a broad range of knowledge concerning Japanese culture, literature, and history, with an emphasis on the samurai. In an interview posted on the Kodansha International Web site, he talked about bushido, a Japanese way of life: "Bu comes from two radicals meanings 'stop' and 'spear.' So even though the word now means 'martial' or 'military affair,' it has the sense of stopping aggression. Shi can mean 'samurai,' but also means 'gentleman' or 'scholar.' Looking at the character, you can see a man with broad shoulders but with his feet squarely on the ground. Do, with the radicals of head and motion, originally depicted a thoughtful way of action. It now means a path, street or way. With this in mind, we can understand Bushido as a way of life, both ethical and martial, with self-discipline as a fundamental tenet." Regarding the modern culture of Japan, he stated that "it impressed me that the company had sort of taken the place of a feudal lord, and that the stipend of the samurai had become the salary of the white-collar worker." Wilson has translated several texts from Japanese to English and is also the author of The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi.

The Lone Samurai tells the story of Miyamoto Musashi, who many consider to have been the finest Japanese swordsman ever. The seventeenth-century samurai eventually became an artist, but he is best remembered for his superb fighting skills and technique. A reviewer for Library Bookwatch remarked that the author "draws upon his considerable expertise as a preeminent translator of classic samurai texts to write an original biography." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that Wilson "integrates a considerable amount of Japanese history and culture into a short, dense book with lots of specialized information."